Remember that hype works both ways...

Rating: Null/10 (2 November 2002)

CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Have you seen the TV advert with a terrified audience filmed with a night sight? Having seen '28 Days Later,' I'd like to know what film they were actually watching because it couldn't have been the same one I saw. The 'shocks' were signposted so far ahead that even one of the 'infected' could have spotted them. I actually found the violence and gore boring. The use of jumpy DV didn't help either as it was impossible to follow the action anyway.
This film really is a mess with not one original idea in its two hour running time. Borrowing heavily from such sci-fi and horror classics as 'The Day Of The Triffids,' 'The Omega Man' and Romero's films including his oft-forgotten 'The Crazies,' the film lurches from one idea to another like a cinematic magpie, but adds nothing to the whole.
The acting is solid, but the characters remain undeveloped for the most part with the exception of Frank (Gleeson) who is believable and rounded, but unfortunately he is killed off too early on.
The plot is really the weakest point. It is so full of holes that I began to wonder if the bus Jim comes across had fallen through one. The virus acts too quickly. Even Romero's zombies took a while to get going after they'd been bitten. We are supposed to marvel at how clever Boyle et al were in filming an empty London, but I'm afraid to say it is as eerie and menacing as Belfast on any Sunday morning (actually less so, because there are more 'zombies' in Belfast at 6am on a Sunday morning). Where are all the bodies and debris? Why is there no evidence of looting? Why have the survivors even remained in the city at all, wouldn't it be just too dangerous with all the corpses? And what is it with that taxi? I'd get myself a big diesel four-wheel drive and be out of there to the mountains. And why was there no twenty-mile traffic jam stretching back from Eccleston's blockade? Two cars? Some roadblock, most of the survivors must be in Scotland. I suppose that's where the plane at the end has come from. Don't even start me on the ending...
This had the potential to be a brilliant British sci-fi film in the vein of Nigel Kneale or Terry Nation, but instead it is just a third-rate shock flick made on a shoestring. I hope the Lottery have some way of getting their money back!